Profiles:
Patricia Stensrud

Music to Marketers: Know Your Audience

"I do not like the status quo," Patricia Stensrud says, reflecting on her multifaceted
career. Whether shes turning around a flailing company, restoring a historic mansion,
or building a new business revitalizing established brands, this dynamic woman is
"never content to be in a situation where I cannot contribute to making things better.
I hope always to be someone who has made a difference."

"So much of education is what you put into it and I received an excellent grounding
at Golden Gate. I always saw myself as a professional person who has a serious mission,
serious tasks, and serious contributions to make. I was not focused on any particular
industry. I was open to everything. It was a vibrant time when I finished my MBA,
so there was a lot of opportunity in many quarters. I knew a little about aerospace,
but I was totally opportunistic. I felt well-equipped to go to work just about anywhere
doing anything."

She was about to enter a workforce that would change dramatically in the course of
her career. In 1972, the year she graduated, fewer than 4 percent of the MBA graduates
nationwide were women. "I came of age at a time when equal opportunity was on the
horizon and corporations were aware that they needed to make room for women. All the
fields I started out in were male-dominated, but I never felt penalized for my gender.
Being a female has worked to my advantage in many ways. I was taken seriously and
in some respects I had an advantage because part of the battle is to stand out from
the competition. I have not felt that being a woman was a barrier, other than my first
job out of college."

That first job was as a market-research analyst for an aeronautics firm. She soon
left that position to move to IBM, where her skills propelled her to Minneapolis as
IBM's regional sales manager for the upper Midwest region. Later she joined a Minnesota
consulting firm, working with senior management at a myriad of companies.

Eventually her skills and experiences would coalesce into a powerhouse career that
started with her first turnaround of the jewelry division at Avon. Pat set out to
create jewelry that she would be proud to wear. She upped the fashion content of the
jewelry and it was an immediate success. "Every other week we were introducing new
products and we got a scorecard. In our division it was just like Christmas every
other week. What I learned is: Know the most you can about your customer. Be broadminded
and make sure you understand who the customers are, how they live and how they see
themselves." Psychographics was an important tool; another was developing the disciplines
required for strategic planning.

After seven years, an appealing opportunity presented itself. She became VP of marketing
for one of the worlds leading retail-design firms, Hambrecht Terrell International.
Before too long, a former Avon colleague had taken the helm of Victoria + Co, a fashion-jewelry
leader that was tarnishing rapidly. He had accepted the job as CEO with a plan to
leave in a few years. "He knew that I had done a good job of turning the jewelry division
around at Avon and he needed to groom a successor rather quickly." Three years later,
she was named CEO. The $50 million company was losing $10 million a year and the conglomerate
that owned Victoria was failing. "When things are so far down you really have no where
to go but up." In the course of twelve years she would transform Victoria into the
worlds largest fashion jewelry company, generating annual revenue of $165 million
and EBITDA of $25 million.

She spent the next few years buying and selling real estate in New Yorks scenic Hudson
Valley, but was soon pulled back to the corporate world. The womens sportswear division
at Tommy Hilfiger was in trouble, and a former colleague thought Patricia would be
just the person to turn it around; and turn it around she did. Weeks before the launch
of the new line, she packed up the entire team and flew to Hong Kong. "We designed
the line right there on the spot. The previews with a few important customers were
so successful that perceptions were reversed and actually got the company back to
its brand DNA."

In 2006 she decided to strike out on her own. "I wanted to take my experience of building
out the vision and strategy of others and create my own company. I've spent the last
three years trying to make acquisitions." Twice, shes come close and a success now
appears to be on the horizon. Her company, Hudson River Partners, works with investment
banks and private equity firms to identify and develop under-valued acquisition opportunities
with strong brand equity and market positions of luxury brands that she feels are
ripe for reinvention. "It's continuing to pursue your own vision and go where your
heart takes you and doing what you think you need to do."

She describes business economics as a mixture of art and science, and the interpretation
of information and its application as highly creative.

Anticipating where she'll go next, Pat Stensrud explains, "Consistently I have found
that incorporating the things I am most passionate about into my career as well as
my personal life has created a cohesive tapestry with consistent threads running through
it. At a given point you can no longer separate those threads because they are all
connected. My current endeavors are simply leading to a new twist of those threads."